Thursday, April 10, 2014

Spoleto Poster Unveiled

Sir Antony Gormley's New York VIII selected

It’s here. For this year’s Spoleto poster New York VIII by British artist Sir Antony Gormley has been selected. According to the fest, Sir Gormley (that’s right, Sir. Gormley was was knighted in the 2014 New Year’s Honours for services to the arts) is best known for his sculpture work, including his Event Horizon installations of life-size figures in London and New York City. New York VIII comes from a series he did in the late ’90s. Incidentally, the artist is no stranger to the festival. In 1991 he had an installation Places with a Past that featured site-specific art in spots around Charleston.

The muted image is of a shadowy figure next to what appears to be scaffolding.

Here are Spoleto general director Nigel Redden’s two cents on the choice:

“Like many of Gormley’s works, it enables viewers to create their own interpretation of whether the figure is looking at us or if we are looking at it, reflecting the experience of the best festival performances that not only give us something to watch, but also change us from within. I am honored to feature an artist who participated in our Places with a Past exhibit and whose work for that show remains so vivid in my memory and, I am sure, in the memory of many others.”